tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3233929804663254212019-05-21T02:53:07.885-07:00PogzLabsRandom Blabber of A Tech EnthusiastPogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-91160427673297983652018-09-22T22:17:00.003-07:002018-09-22T22:20:35.713-07:00OBS Black/Frozen Screen IssueRecently I went back to streaming and tried to improve my setup and use <a href="https://streamlabs.com/" target="_blank">Streamlabs OBS</a>&nbsp;(SLOBS), a variant of the popular Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) which includes a really nice app for iOS and Android which lets you control you broadcast.<br /><br />My only issue about SLOBS (and/or OBS) in general is when you stream some games, its a hit or miss experience. Most of the reported issues include a black screen (but with audio) or in my experience, frozen frames as I transition from one part of a game to another.<br /><br />I had the time to do some trial and error testing yesterday and listed below is the pre-requisites and some quick summary of my setup. Take note of the terminologies used throughout this post.<br /><br /><b>Terminologies</b><br /><ul><li><b>SLOBS/OBS</b> - Streaming software, liberally used interchangeably in this post.&nbsp;</li><li><b>Source </b>- This is where an input of OBS is coming from. This can be a webcam, computer screen, full screen application, a webpage, an image, etc.</li><li><b>Display Capture</b> - Captures your whole screen regardless of what application you are running</li><li><b>Game Capture</b> - Captures several types of game windows, any full screen application, target app, etc.</li><li><b>Overlay </b>- Any software that puts information on top of a window (ie. stats, readings, quick controls, etc)</li><li><b>Anti-cheat hook</b> - An option in SLOBS/OBS where the window listener will mimic user behaviour to avoid triggering anti-cheat applications</li><li><b>Blizzard games</b> - Anything launched within the Battle.net launcher. This includes Diablo 3, Overwatch, Starcraft, World of Warcaft, etc.</li><li><b>Other games</b> - Any other game outside of Battle.net titles.</li></ul><b>Pre-requisites</b><br /><ol><li><b>Run as Administrator</b> - Run SLOBS as Administrator</li><li><b>New game, new stream</b> - If you are changing a game, it is advisable to stop the stream, close the game, start the new game and start a new stream. I had issues where OBS failed to capture the new full screen application after relaunching, at times even the display capture fails to stream it properly.</li><li><b>Disable overlays you don't use</b> - The only overlay I want is the MSI Afterburner so that I can track my CPU/GPU usage and temp when I'm watching my recording. The NVidia game stream overlay and the Windows 10 Game Mode should be disabled since OBS tends to panic with so much overlays.</li><li><b>Disable anti-cheat hook</b> - Disable the anti-cheat hook for game capture. This is one of the recommendations found from scouring the forums about black screen issues.&nbsp;</li></ol><div><b>Setup your SLOBS/OBS</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Below is my SLOBS/OBS desktop app setup which has 4 scenes:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ums4pEUq-fk/W6cfSWPa2VI/AAAAAAAAGIU/Ppl71fQcvUctTFX-Vg7j6Qxlgi5gikICQCLcBGAs/s1600/slobs.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="231" data-original-width="525" height="175" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ums4pEUq-fk/W6cfSWPa2VI/AAAAAAAAGIU/Ppl71fQcvUctTFX-Vg7j6Qxlgi5gikICQCLcBGAs/s400/slobs.PNG" width="400" /></a></div><div><ul><li><b>Stand By</b> - For the standby image, the source is just an image</li><li><b>Blizz (Game; No Overlay)</b> - Which includes a Game Capture source with <span style="color: red;">overlay unchecked</span>, anti-cheat hook unchecked</li><li><b>Other Games (Disp Cap)</b> - For all other games with a Display Capture source</li><li><b>Other Games (Game Cap)</b> - For all other games with a Game Capture source with <span style="color: lime;">overlay checked</span> and anti-cheat hook unchecked</li></ul><div>In my SLOBS app, I start with the Stand By scene and just toggle to the other scenes as needed.&nbsp;</div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3jARIbpHOVs/W6cgF3unuRI/AAAAAAAAGIc/x0VxFL6o_igwgDNqoyBxw06PKbJQq3lmQCLcBGAs/s1600/slobsapp.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1600" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3jARIbpHOVs/W6cgF3unuRI/AAAAAAAAGIc/x0VxFL6o_igwgDNqoyBxw06PKbJQq3lmQCLcBGAs/s400/slobsapp.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>Final Notes</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Please keep in mind that the tests performed here is not a complete and exhaustive test on what works for what games all the time. It is always better to preview your OBS using a second monitor or hope that the SLOBS mobile app would include a feature to preview your stream before hitting that "Go Live" button.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The combination of SLOBS desktop and mobile app completely removes the need for an expensive device like an Elgato Stream Deck. While it is lacking in some of the aspects like: Why cant it properly handle overlays? Why does it panic if you have too many of the same sources in too many scenes? For a free application, I'm not one to complain. I do feel that at times it is disappointing to go back to my stream and see that nothing was captured.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>Here are Some of my TLDRs;</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><ul><li>Blizzard games doesnt like overlay (and display capture)</li><li>Other games is ok with overlay using Display Capture</li><li>PUBG doesnt like Game Capture (with or w/o overlay)</li><li>Use Display Capture as much as possible</li></ul><div><div><b>Follow, like and subscribe</b></div><div><ul><li>Facebook: <a href="http://facebook.pogznet.com/">http://facebook.pogznet.com</a></li><li>Twitch: <a href="http://twitch.pogznet.com/">http://twitch.pogznet.com</a></li><li>YouTube: <a href="http://youtube.pogznet.com/">http://youtube.pogznet.com</a></li><li>Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.pogznet.com/">http://twitter.pogznet.com</a></li></ul></div></div>Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-29553027071724230872013-04-14T03:56:00.000-07:002013-04-14T03:57:01.240-07:00Self Signed SSL CertificatesEver wondered how to enable SSL or HTTPS on your site? If you dont want to pay for commercial SSL certificates, you could create self signed certificates for your site by following the instructions here:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-create-a-ssl-certificate-on-apache-for-ubuntu-12-04">https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-create-a-ssl-certificate-on-apache-for-ubuntu-12-04</a><br /><br />The instructions in the site above will make your default site HTTPS enabled. If you prefer having a commercial SSL, save your certificate files and key files in your server and edit the location on the /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/default to point to the directory where you stored those files.Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-78216953501869140232012-12-02T01:41:00.002-08:002012-12-02T01:42:58.708-08:00Report-a-PottyIn line with the nationwide <a href="http://www.gtugphilippines.org/2012/11/sanitation-hackathon-2012.html" target="_blank">Sanitation Hackathon</a> organized by several organizations here in the philippines and abroad, I mentored for one of the GDG chapters here in Davao.<br /><br />After my presentation yesterday, I myself attempted to do a quick hack on how to help in the sanitation problems faced here and abroad.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FP65YQ5NX2A/ULshXXXV4vI/AAAAAAAADN8/Chm6_GJqu2M/s1600/photo+1.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FP65YQ5NX2A/ULshXXXV4vI/AAAAAAAADN8/Chm6_GJqu2M/s1600/photo+1.PNG" /></a></div><br />Using Google Maps Javascript API and a supposedly a little bit of PHP (but I became to busy to continue the rest of the application) I've created a webapp which does a simple basic thing: get your current location and report/tag it as an offender. This is in hoping that the corresponding establishments and local government units to improve the sanitation of their provided restroom facilities.<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KJC-Ikg0wbY/ULshbJxOT_I/AAAAAAAADOE/EnddfSIhjUQ/s1600/photo+2.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KJC-Ikg0wbY/ULshbJxOT_I/AAAAAAAADOE/EnddfSIhjUQ/s320/photo+2.PNG" width="213" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5x8j6sm7TiU/ULshctovCoI/AAAAAAAADOM/IaSoDi1RGiA/s1600/photo+3.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5x8j6sm7TiU/ULshctovCoI/AAAAAAAADOM/IaSoDi1RGiA/s320/photo+3.PNG" width="213" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Unfortunately, since im one of the mentors for the Davao participants, I wont be able to join the submission of entries. Its a nice proof of concept though :)&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The source code could be viewed (since its all just a bunch of HTML and JavaScript. The app is available at <a href="http://tinyurl.com/pogzsanhack">http://tinyurl.com/pogzsanhack</a>&nbsp;</div></div><br /><br />Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-52195598365246848632012-09-21T21:43:00.001-07:002012-09-21T21:44:05.351-07:00LTE and the Unlocked iPhone 5<br />So heres the deal, theres a new iPhone out there and its got the new blazing LTE. If you're planning to get one buying from countries which have unlocked options (Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong) doesnt necessarily merit that you'll get LTE compatibility wherever you go.<br /><br />In the iPhone 5 website, theres a little asterisk there. Pretty sneaky if you ask me, that they have created 2 different models probably using 2 different LTE chips.<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">GSM model A1428*: UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 4 and 17)&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">GSM model A1429*: UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 1, 3, 5)</blockquote><div style="text-align: right;">- From: http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html</div><br />So what does this mean? If you're planning to get an unlocked unit from other country, LTE speeds might not be compatible with yours. From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LTE_networks" target="_blank">Wikpedia</a>, theres a working list of LTE bands per country.<br /><br />With me residing in the Philippines it seems that the LTE band in the Philippines is LTE Band 1 and 3 (GSM model A1429). But what if im travelling outside? US or Canada perhaps? I think what better way to explain this by plotting it into a spreadsheet.<br /><br /><iframe align="center" frameborder="0" height="500" src="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AukTUl_vun-_dGo5Rm1BbjA5d09UUmhMVkJEX1RFMHc&amp;single=true&amp;gid=0&amp;output=html&amp;widget=true" width="500"></iframe><br /><br />So, how do you look at the graph? Normally, you would be sourcing your phone from somehere its factory unlocked. Either Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada (or US once they make it available in the Apple Store) So, <b>look for the country where your unlocked iPhone will be originating</b>. Most likely that the iPhone that will be sold there will be using that LTE band (duh). <b>After, look for the country you will be using your phone. </b>For me, I will be looking at the Philippines.<br /><br />From here, it seems like the Philippines is using LTE band 1 and 3 (A1429) and the countries which will most likely sell an unlocked A1429 would be: Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia.<br /><br />If you would notice, if I buy myself an A1429.. LTE features might not work when I fly to either Canada or the US. Sad.<br /><br />Anyway, as a disclaimer, this spreadsheet was compiled September 2012 and may not reflect the changes once new carriers roll out new LTE infrastructure in the future.Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-29415998540219673452012-09-15T09:58:00.001-07:002012-09-15T10:11:39.593-07:00Comparing Prepaid Data Plans from Globe, Smart and SunRecently I have been thinking about those minor differences when it comes to subscribing to a data plan here in the country. So far we're fortunate that we have lots of options but apparently, it takes some discerning as to what to subscribe to given the situation.<br /><br />I have been in several instances wherein, I was at the beach with friends for 3 days. I would be getting a better deal if I subscribed into an unlimited data for 3 days rather than 1 day and resubscribe every time. Thinking about my consumption, since I didnt bring my laptop then (hey, it was Boracay!) the only thing I do with my iPhone was to check my mail and check in to 4square. Maybe an MB based subscription might be better.<br /><br />On a recent trip, I was on the road going to the beach (again) but this time I have with me my laptop with the intention of squeezing in some work during the long travel time. I opted to subscribe for a 1 day unlimited since I knew for a fact that I would't be working on the way back.<br /><br />So upon rummaging through the websites of our favorite telcos, I sorted the mobile dataplan for each. One is for MB based (currently sorted by the allocated MB) you may also cross reference it for the cost/MB ratio if you're getting a good deal.<br /><br /><iframe width='500' height='365' frameborder='0' src='https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AukTUl_vun-_dE5iN19IVGpkRVNqeGlzOUF3bVVvY3c&single=true&gid=0&output=html&widget=true'></iframe><br /><br />Another, comparing the unlimited data plans. I sorted them according to the number of days you would be needing to be online. Again I also provided a column for cost/day ratio which you could try to pick if its just right for you.<br /><br /><iframe width='500' height='300' frameborder='0' src='https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AukTUl_vun-_dE5iN19IVGpkRVNqeGlzOUF3bVVvY3c&single=true&gid=1&output=html&widget=true'></iframe><br /><br />Take note that these plans are for PREPAID sims only. I also did not include the hourly plan of Sun which doesnt really coincide with the MB chart.Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-35001955412595883512012-06-13T04:03:00.000-07:002012-06-13T04:05:50.139-07:00Data Disaster<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Several years ago, I was issued a white Macbook for work which I typically use for everything. I have my work files there, I have my personal files there and it has been part of my life. A <a href="http://butchcafe.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">colleague</a>&nbsp;who was issued the same Macbook model woke up with an error with his Mac hard drive.&nbsp;</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YHr2riu23Xc/T9hs_YgcrNI/AAAAAAAADJo/wMATSSlc2F4/s1600/ImageUploadedByModMyi1323486208.115271.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YHr2riu23Xc/T9hs_YgcrNI/AAAAAAAADJo/wMATSSlc2F4/s320/ImageUploadedByModMyi1323486208.115271.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit from <a href="http://modmyi.com/attachments/forums/mac-software/556433d1323486141-os-x-lion-boot-problem-imageuploadedbymodmyi1323486208.115271.jpg" target="_blank">here</a></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As part of my work, I tried to recover whatever is recoverable in his drive. We had a Network Access Storage (NAS) which is seldom used but most of his files are in his Mac hard drive. Tough luck, after doing whatever I can to recover, I declared it dead. It was lucky that it was still under warranty but the files lost, or the time devoted to writing those files or creating those files will never be replaced.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Soon enough, despite that warning, mine gave out. Died. Same error. Despite that earlier warning, I didnt back up either to the NAS or to any other storage. If felt like my life has been wiped clean. Source codes, documents, pictures, my life. Its hard to accept losing something that you've taken time to collect. Those pictures, that vacation, that exact moment, those kilo lines of code you wrote. Gone.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I picked up whats left from fragments of my life scattered around. Some work files are in the NAS, some were in Google Docs, some in my old desktop PC, some in my laptop which was with my sister in Canada. As for the pictures, I had to pay Multiply to bulk download all my pictures in high res. I had to pay for my pictures. I kinda felt raped. Multiply was never fair to those people taking away data <a href="http://labs.pogznet.com/2010/11/web-service-foul.html" target="_blank">(see this post)</a>.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I bounced back after some time, I just thought to myself, any file that I wouldnt be looking for isnt probably needed anymore. After several years and several iterations of hardware, I found myself having too much spare hard drives either being given to me by my uncle as spare parts or part of my old PC. Old stuff, 40GB, 80GB, 120GB, 250GB IDE drives. Not much use slapped inside a PC.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lveVQdnrv-s/T9hr4EKg7nI/AAAAAAAADJc/0U9BUQx5v8E/s1600/IMG_1549.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lveVQdnrv-s/T9hr4EKg7nI/AAAAAAAADJc/0U9BUQx5v8E/s320/IMG_1549.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lining them up to be loaded and labelled</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-align: left;">It took some time for me to sort out everything in my digital life. In general, I have sorted into folders like: Pictures, Downloads, Documents, Music, Pogz Files (source codes and anything that doesnt fit anywhere else) and figured out that most of the folders, when organized properly are relatively small. Chunks of 10GB, 27GB and the largest are like 78GB, 40GB. Then I realized that maybe I could do a quarterly backup using my old drives. Its like a puzzle making combinations of folders fit in drives which had limited capacity. I end up with several drives and most of my folders backed up in 2 drives. I cant gamble the reliability of those old drives so having a secondary or tertiary backup would be great (since I have a lot of drives anyway).&nbsp;</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Yesterday, my netbook just gave up on me. Again, most of my files are there but thankfully, a part of the partition is still intact. I've been backing up since last night to my drives and would send the laptop to HP to claim its rightful warranty.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My IDE poormans drive backup didnt save me this time, but it felt assuring that I do have some backups (even if its months back) rather than starting my life from scratch.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">To those who might ask: Why not buy dedicated cloud storage for backup? Dropbox? Google Drive? Amazon S3 + ZManda?&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">To tell you the truth, I have considered that option. It would be a whole lot cheaper and more reliable than what I do, or compared to buying NAS drives or portable hard drives. But the problem is, despite my downstream hitting around 2Mbps, my upstream is a measly 512Kbps. The total filesize of all my folders is around 170gb. I have files which also exceeds upload limits.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Then again, being partially safe, is better than not being safe.&nbsp;</div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-73014595530278234052011-10-02T20:40:00.000-07:002011-10-02T20:40:10.429-07:00[Programming] XMPP and Office Guru (Part 2)Since my last post, I had a really hard time making XMPP work using XMPP severs for Linux. Luckily, there was an easier way of doing things without the messy details of installing and hosting your own XMPP server. From this post, How to Write Your Own IM Bot in Less Than 5 Minutes (http://www.labnol.org/internet/tutorial-create-bot-for-gtalk-yahoo-messenger/4354/) I found out that there is a service called IMified which 'hosts' your bots and calls a specific page to do all the processing. As an overview, below is a simple diagram on how IMified works. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y7TaRV5htB4/TjJ6fja67AI/AAAAAAAAC9w/87KWzpihzbA/s1600/IMified+Workflow.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y7TaRV5htB4/TjJ6fja67AI/AAAAAAAAC9w/87KWzpihzbA/s400/IMified+Workflow.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />So going back to our previous problem, how do we create a location monitoring application which accepts user input thru IM and then displays it to a screen? So with my IMified bot in place, what I did was to code a simple PHP page which accepts POST parameters from IMified and processes it accordingly. Below is the source code for the page which accepts the values sent from IMified<br /><br /><pre>&lt;?PHP<br />/* <br />IMified Message Handler<br />Allan Paul "Pogz" Sy Ortile<br />June 2011<br /><br />IMified sends information through POST requests <br />which in turn is then handled by this page.<br />For the complete list of POST values sent, you<br />may consult http://www.imified.com/developers/api<br />for more details. <br />*/<br /><br />$user = $_POST['user'];<br />$msg = $_POST['msg'];<br />// Time stamp to log what time the message was recieved<br />$time = time();<br /><br />// Connect to database<br />$con = mysql_connect("host","username","password");<br />if (!$con)<br /> {<br /> die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());<br /> }<br />else <br /> {<br /> // Select the database to use<br /> mysql_select_db("db_name", $con);<br /><br /> // Ass the message to the table in the database <br /> mysql_query("UPDATE tbl_user SET time = '$time', location = '$msg' WHERE ymuser = '$user' ");<br /><br /> // Bot reply to user<br /> echo "Hi " . $user . "! Your current location has been logged! ";<br /> mysql_close($con);<br /> }<br /><br />?&gt;</pre><br />If we would trace what is happening between the user, the IMified service and the webserver you may refer to the steps below:<br /><br />1.) ymuser sends "currently at the office" to the ymchatbot hosted by IMified<br />2.) IMified processes the message and then passes the POST values to the page located in our webserver<br />$_POST['user']; now contains the value ymuser<br />$_POST['msg']; now contains "currently at the office" <br />3.) The accepting page now processes the POST values sent which is then saved to a database along with a timestamp generated from the PHP code. <br />4.) The accepting page replies with "Hi ymuser! Your current location has been logged!"<br /><br />So now, the values are saved into our MySQL database which is then picked up by another page which is just a regular PHP page. The source code could be found below:<br /><br /><pre>&lt;?PHP<br />/* <br />Location Output Page<br />Allan Paul "Pogz" Sy Ortile<br />June 2011<br />*/<br /><br />// Connect to database<br />$con = mysql_connect("host","username","password");<br />if (!$con)<br /> {<br /> die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());<br /> }<br />else <br /> {<br /> // Use database and table<br /> mysql_select_db("db_name", $con);<br /><br /> // Do query and pick only the ones in the SMS team and order it by latest timestamp<br /> $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM tbl_user WHERE team = 'SMS' ORDER BY time DESC ");<br /> <br /> // Display unique recent post<br /> echo "&lt;body bgcolor='#FFFFEE'&gt;<br /> &lt;div align='center'&gt;<br /> &lt;table border='1'&gt;<br /> &lt;tr&gt;<br /> &lt;th align='center'&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;font size='+2' 'verdana'&gt;USERNAME&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/th&gt;<br /> &lt;th width='250' align='center' &gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;font size='+2' 'verdana'&gt;TIME&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/th&gt;<br /> &lt;th width='550'&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;font size='+2' 'verdana'&gt;LOCATION&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/th&gt;<br /> &lt;/tr&gt;";<br /> <br /> // Some output mumbojumbo<br /> while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))<br /> {<br /> $human_time = date('d-m-y H:i',$row['time']);<br /> echo "&lt;tr&gt;";<br /> echo "&lt;td align='center'&gt;&lt;font size='+2' face='verdana'&gt;" . $row['dlsuuser'] . "&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/td&gt;";<br /> echo "&lt;td align='center'&gt;&lt;font size='+1' face='verdana'&gt;&lt;b&gt;" . $human_time . "&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/td&gt;";<br /> echo "&lt;td&gt;&lt;font size='+2' face='verdana'&gt;" . $row['location'] . "&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/td&gt;"; <br /> echo "&lt;/tr&gt;";<br /> }<br /> echo "&lt;/table&gt;<br /> &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;";<br /><br /> mysql_close($con);<br /> }<br /><br />?&gt;<br /></pre><div><br /></div>The database schema contains the following fields: uid, ymuser, dlsuuser, time, location, team. All of which are text values save for uid and time which are integer values. So, you might be wondering why I opted having a ymuser field and a dlsuuser field. The two fields just does a mapping of the persons YM id with its corresponding work userid. Its just for formalization.<br /><br />From our infrastructure monitoring screen, I just added an iframe which just calls the page where the results are displayed. <br /><br />Its pretty much straight forward. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8LS_jm0VUXs/TjKAZTJuJoI/AAAAAAAAC90/A3hXVYsLeAU/s1600/IMG_0067.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8LS_jm0VUXs/TjKAZTJuJoI/AAAAAAAAC90/A3hXVYsLeAU/s400/IMG_0067.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-73407713953295192602011-10-02T20:23:00.000-07:002011-10-02T20:23:02.010-07:00Posting Source CodesI have a draft post to the part 2 of my previous post about creating a chatbot, it seems like it has been stuck in draft for quite some time since I was looking for a solution on how to post source code here in Blogger. After trying out some stuff and having failed attempts, I went out for a while and shelved the whole thing. <br /><br /><pre>&lt;? PHP<br />echo ("Hello World!");<br />?&gt;</pre><br />Credit goes out to&nbsp;<a href="http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2006/03/20/posting-source-code-to-blogger/">http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2006/03/20/posting-source-code-to-blogger/</a>&nbsp;which apparently, I've failed to see previously.<br /><br />After trying it out, I've seen a &nbsp;more proper and elegant solution. By enabling the "Show HTML literally" and adding a &lt;pre&gt; &lt;/pre&gt; tag on the HTML source of the post one could obtain the formatting above.&nbsp;Hopefully I could finalize my previous post about setting up a chatbot.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-snutqshQE2k/TokhmsNUGVI/AAAAAAAAC_s/S_-NQmjmRTQ/s1600/blg.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-snutqshQE2k/TokhmsNUGVI/AAAAAAAAC_s/S_-NQmjmRTQ/s400/blg.PNG" width="186" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br /><br />Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-84350388507771995972011-04-14T07:10:00.000-07:002011-07-29T01:48:18.923-07:00[Programming] XMPP and Office Guru (Part 1)I heard an idea one day.. They wanted some kind of <i>'online board'</i> where everyone is duly accounted for. May it be that someone is on a meeting, or went out for coffee or whatever. Another thing they wanted was they wanted to have an in house chat application. I squirmed at the thought of building one just for that sole purpose when there are already gajillions of chat programs out there, open source, free, robust and would most likely work great. I dont see the point in reinventing the wheel if there is already a Michelin tire available up for grabs. Not to mention that it would easily integrate with any existing system.<br /><br />To those who dont know, Google made a half baked embodiement of their intelligent search engine in a form of a chat bot.. Aka, Google Guru. Feel free to add him (or her) to your GChat (guru@googlelabs.com) and ask him (or her) simple things like <i>"temperature manila"</i> .. So why not create something like Google Guru, like Office Guru or something?<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_Ha2eQf3XNw/Tab_oGHTNLI/AAAAAAAAC5U/m9ikJAAKEBA/s1600/guru.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_Ha2eQf3XNw/Tab_oGHTNLI/AAAAAAAAC5U/m9ikJAAKEBA/s1600/guru.PNG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Please dont ask it the meaning of life, we already tried. Im wondering, if in the future, this guy would pass the Turing test.</td></tr></tbody></table>So what Office Guru does is that, you add Office Guru to your chat application and tell it something if ever you plan on leaving your desk. For example <i>"meeting at Coffee Bean"</i> or<i> "went to pee"</i> or<i> "on sick leave"</i> then Office Guru would post that to the 'online board' where everyone could see and know where in the world are you.<br /><br />So going to the technical side, you would need a server which has and XMPP server application. Google Chat uses the XMPP protocol so which, in theory you could use it to be able to have your Google Chat account communicate with the XMPP server.<br /><br />I was looking for a quick and dirty solution for me to deploy to my Ubuntu home server, so I started Googling XMPP server and Ubuntu. I found several articles which seems to be a good lead<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ubuntu-unleashed.com/2007/08/howto-install-openfire-xmpp-jabber.html">http://www.ubuntu-unleashed.com/2007/08/howto-install-openfire-xmpp-jabber.html</a><br /><a href="http://www.classhelper.org/articles/debian-openfire-chat-server/openfire-server-install-p1.shtml">http://www.classhelper.org/articles/debian-openfire-chat-server/openfire-server-install-p1.shtml</a><br /><br />Well looking at the Google Chat api, it seems to be in beta, and is currently in labs.<br /><br />Im not quite sure if im doing the right approach. What i actually want is:<br /><br />My sever (running XMPP client/server or whatever, logged in to my Office Guru account) would accept messages from anyone and parse that message and then save that to a database.. which a webpage would look into that database to see the latest updates/messages from the user.<br /><br />Apparently, looking a bit further, Google App Engine supports XMPP service.. This is exactly what I want. But unfortunately, Im really not good in speaking Java or Python.. I kinda wish that this setup could be emulated in my local server.<br /><br />Good read though. <a href="http://code.google.com/appengine/articles/using_xmpp.html">http://code.google.com/appengine/articles/using_xmpp.html</a><br /><br />Ok. So I think I need to read more. Im gonna try installing an XMPP server and see the functionality from there.<br /><br />Will update again for progress.<br /><br />ps: I was kinda thinking of naming my guru, PogzBot .. Pretty neat huh?<br /><br />pps: Im thinking of extending this by having an SMS gateway where you could text PogzBot and.. wait.. scratch that thought.. If I have an SMS gateway like Gnokii, it could directly write to the database.. I would just need a proper identifier which could link a certain cellphone number to an email account. No points for being unecessarily creative. Haha.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">-- 10:47PM Logs Start --</div><br /><br />ok let me try looking for the package if it exists<br /><blockquote>apt-cache search openfire&nbsp;</blockquote>seems like it returned empty. checked openfire website.. well there is a consolation.. it has some deb packages, which is probably compatible with my ubuntu server. well, lets try it.<br /><br />visiting <a href="http://www.igniterealtime.org/downloads/index.jsp#openfire">http://www.igniterealtime.org/downloads/index.jsp#openfire</a><br /><br />clicked on linux platform. copy the deb link and issued a<br /><blockquote>wget http://www.igniterealtime.org/downloads/download-landing.jsp?file=openfire/openfire_3.7.0_all.deb&nbsp;</blockquote>command on the server to fetch the file.<br /><br />why is it taking so long to resolve the domain? anyway, there it is, downloaded. great. now lets install the package ..<br /><blockquote>dpkg -i openfire_3.7.0_all.deb</blockquote>well that was pretty much stupid, it downloaded it as<br /><blockquote>download-landing.jsp?file=openfire%2Fopenfire_3.7.0_all.deb</blockquote>what? ok let me rename that..<br /><blockquote>mv download-landing.jsp?file=openfire%2Fopenfire_3.7.0_all.deb openfire_3.7.0_all.deb</blockquote>lets try the previous command<br /><br />ok still got an error<br /><blockquote>root@odin:/home/odin# dpkg -i openfire_3.7.0_all.deb<br />dpkg-deb: `openfire_3.7.0_all.deb' is not a debian format archive<br />dpkg: error processing openfire_3.7.0_all.deb (--install):<br />&nbsp;subprocess dpkg-deb --control returned error exit status 2<br />Errors were encountered while processing:<br />&nbsp;openfire_3.7.0_all.deb</blockquote>not a debian package? are you blind? ok, i think there was a download problem. i tried heading on to the web browser and clicking the link directly.. as suspected, i was thrown into a new page which contained the link 'if the download window does not appear please click here" .. coped the link on the click here hyperlink.. that stuff is more reliable..<br /><blockquote>wget http://www.igniterealtime.org/downloadServlet?filename=openfire/openfire_3.7.0_all.deb</blockquote>now we're talking.<br /><br />reading through the manual found at<br /><br /><a href="http://library.linode.com/communications/xmpp/openfire/ubuntu-9.04-jaunty#install_openfire">http://library.linode.com/communications/xmpp/openfire/ubuntu-9.04-jaunty#install_openfire</a><br /><br />seemed to get me drowsy and sleepy. I was never a fan of reading manuals.<br /><br />ok as expected, i skipped installing the java part. it threw a dependency error.<br /><br /><blockquote>root@odin:/home/odin# dpkg -i openfire.deb<br />Selecting previously deselected package openfire.<br />dpkg: regarding openfire.deb containing openfire, pre-dependency problem:<br />&nbsp;openfire pre-depends on sun-java5-jre | sun-java6-jre<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;sun-java5-jre is not installed.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;sun-java6-jre is not installed.<br />dpkg: error processing openfire.deb (--install):<br />&nbsp;pre-dependency problem - not installing openfire<br />Errors were encountered while processing:<br />&nbsp;openfire.deb</blockquote>I ran a quick apt<br /><br /><blockquote>apt-get install sun-java6-jre</blockquote><div>but for some reason, it says that its unavailable. what the? seriously.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>ok again, because i was skipping the manual, i skipped editing the repository to enable multiverse.</div><blockquote>nano /etc/apt/sources.list</blockquote><div>ran an apt-get update and apt-get upgrade after.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>still cant find the packages. oh come on.&nbsp;</div><br /><br /><br />i think ill sleep for a while.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">-- 10:47PM Logs End--</div>Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-34942961212222403042011-03-14T02:50:00.000-07:002011-03-14T02:51:47.867-07:00Moving to a New Linux Web Based Torrent ClientFor years, I have been using TorrentFlux (url here) as my primary torrent client situated in my Ubuntu download server. But as time went on, the developers completely abandoned the development of TorrentFlux which led to several forks which I think is still insufficient for my needs. <br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pcFVmdBHtIU/TX3jeZcWHDI/AAAAAAAAC4w/LAJrs0npmM0/s1600/torrentflux.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="237" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pcFVmdBHtIU/TX3jeZcWHDI/AAAAAAAAC4w/LAJrs0npmM0/s320/torrentflux.PNG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Main GUI of TorrentFlux</td></tr></tbody></table>Ive checked several options which runs on a GUI-less environment. Since my Ubuntu server is just running on command line to save precious memory, I needed something bare, simple and is packed with features. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T4DOK-KLU30/TX3k5hOOh8I/AAAAAAAAC48/UQ1dLYwEy2I/s1600/comparison.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-T4DOK-KLU30/TX3k5hOOh8I/AAAAAAAAC48/UQ1dLYwEy2I/s400/comparison.PNG" width="400" /></a></div><br />Installing uTorrent Server is pretty straight forward. Download. Uncompress. Run. This is better than the approach of TorrentFlux which you need to setup LAMP server and create a database. More often than not, it happens to me that some of the data in the DB gets corrupted. I normally just reinstall the whole thing again.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-LXhSVfzLIsQ/TX3jpX29RcI/AAAAAAAAC44/P5veM7OyaGw/s1600/utorrentserver.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-LXhSVfzLIsQ/TX3jpX29RcI/AAAAAAAAC44/P5veM7OyaGw/s320/utorrentserver.PNG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Main GUI of uTorrent Server</td></tr></tbody></table>To further elaborate on the setup process, I've gotten an excerpt from this thread which, quite simply discusses how to run uTorrent Server. (http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=84274)<br /><br />1.) Download using WGET command. The link for the latest version is here: http://www.utorrent.com/downloads/linux<br /><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">wget http://download.utorrent.com/linux/utorrent-server-3.0-24733.tar.gz</span></blockquote>2.) Untar the folder <br /><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">tar -zxvf utorrent-server-3.0-24733.tar.gz</span></blockquote>3.) Go inside the folder<br /><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">cd utorrent-server-3.0-24733</span></blockquote>4.) Run the program<br /><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">./utserver</span></blockquote>6.) Open your favorite browser and point to your servers ip at port 8080<br /><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">http://192.168.1.100:8080/</span></blockquote>7.) Default login is admin with no password<br /><br />Ive been using uTorrent for quite some time now, and though it is a good alternative to TorrentFlux, there are still some minor annoyances I have to deal with. Below are some of the problems or annoyances I have encountered. <br /><br />1.) It runs its own webserver - I dont need another crap running at another port. I want it to run under my existing apache setup in my existing port 80 connection. Actually, there is an option, but after working to make it work (either the uTorrent Server or the Apache configuration is acting up), I gave up on it. <br /><br />2.) You have to do some funky stuff to make it run on boot - You have to create a daemon for this process to automagically run when your server suddenly dies and wakes up. <br /><br />3.) The damn thing is heavy - It eats up great amounts of my CPU cycles running some torrents. <br /><br />4.) The stuff I downloaded is scattered in my download folder - I often download stuff which is RARed several times. It doesnt have the option to group per torrent task which leads you to wonder which file goes with whom? <br /><br />5.) Stupid configuration file - Most applications look for a specific file before it creates its own. This beast doesnt give a rats ass about that. If you dont inherently define what config to use.. It will 'virtually' create another config with the default values. <br /><br />6.) The GUI is heavy like a 10 ton pregnant whale - I wanted to queue a torrent on my iPhone, the thing was staggering. I wanted to throw my iPhone in frustration. Hey, maybe theres an app for that! <br /><br />Well, im still hoping that the newer fixes would take care of those things. But right now, im pretty much flinching everytime I use uTorrent Server for downloading stuff. I guess, the important thing is I get to queue stuff wherever I am and just immediately watch when I get home.Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-49460319078939723662011-02-13T23:48:00.001-08:002011-02-13T23:48:38.127-08:00Processes and PortsTo quickly find which processes is currently using a specific port in Linux, try this command:<br /><br /><blockquote>lsof -w -n -i tcp:8080<br /></blockquote>Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-39573110609912627272011-01-08T02:43:00.000-08:002011-01-08T02:43:09.700-08:00Ive Messed Up My Master Boot RecordI got too overly excited in refreshing my OS installation in my old Inspiron 640m that I just cleaned off the Linux partition through the Drive Management Snap-in of Microsoft while I was still booted in XP. I completely forgot that the GRUB was the bootloader managing my OS selection in the Master Boot Record of my drive.<br /><br />In plain English, I wanted to clear out my old Linux installation and merge the partition with the old XP partition when I run the Windows 7 install. It was a mistake to use the Drive Management Snap-in rather than having the Windows 7 installation take care of the partition clearing. This caused problems because the bootloader (GRUB) or the one which asks which OS are you going to boot is in the partition I wiped out. Therefore, I cannot go into the Linux partition (obviously, since it has already been wiped out) nor the Windows XP partition.<br /><br />There is a quick fix with this by using the XP install CD and fixing the MBR by going to the command prompt and typing fixmbr more on this is discussed on this website:&nbsp;<a href="http://askbobrankin.com/fix_mbr.html">http://askbobrankin.com/fix_mbr.html</a><br /><br />But unfortunately, I dont have my XP install CD with me. This would also be a problem for those people who are using a netbook and accidentally cleared their Master Boot Record.<br /><br />There is a tool called SuperGRUB which could fix your GRUB boot loader (incase it just got corrupted) or if you want to just use the Windows bootloader, you could also choose to activate it instead.<br /><br />You could easily create a SuperGRUB bootable USB drive by using the UNetbootin application for Windows and Linux found on this website:&nbsp;<a href="http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/">http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/</a><br /><br />When running UNetbootin, just select SuperGRUB from the dropdown<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TSg-l47OB2I/AAAAAAAAC4A/Zri-4sg2Hks/s1600/UNetbootin.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TSg-l47OB2I/AAAAAAAAC4A/Zri-4sg2Hks/s320/UNetbootin.PNG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">All you need to do is select your USB drive from the drop down at the bottom and it will automatically download and install SuperGRUB from the internet and create a bootable flash drive.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">UNetbootin is also a handy tool in creating bootable flash drives so you could install your favorite Linux distribution on a computer without a CD drive. Same process goes, just select the distribution from the drop down and the version, but instead of having UNetbootin download it, you would select an .ISO image of your distribution of choice. Proceed to select your desired flash drive location and press ok.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Going back, upon booting SuperGRUB, just follow the instructions. Again, for someone who doesnt like reading manuals, I had to reboot several times until I forced myself to read the instructions before using it. Again, the instructions would tell you how it works and what to select. So save yourself some time and go through it before selecting anything on the menu.&nbsp;</div>Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-78062587900764396562010-12-19T01:18:00.000-08:002010-12-19T01:18:58.938-08:00Unfamiliar TerritoryI landed in LA around 5 days ago, because we were ahead by a week from my sisters arrival, we were out of plans and out of things to do. My sister normally does all the planning and moving from one place to another.. During the first days, me and my dad tried to catch up all the lost sleep we had from the plane and did some minor body clock adjustments. All the time doing nothing was kinda getting depressing. Its a good thing that I got to go out today and set out traveling around a place I don't know, alone.<br /><br />I did my research beforehand and I think part of a decent survival kit (normally for first world countries) is first to know your way around. Back then, we get to go around using maps, but now I think we have Google to thank for Google Maps. The only problem is, you need consistent stream of data so you wont get lost.<br /><br />With my laptop, I checked out a nice place to visit that is either walkable or accessible with just one bus ride probably a kilometer or two away from my place. There was a T-Mobile branch some walking distance + a bus ride away from our place. I headed there and got myself a sim with unlimited data.<br /><br />Commute money is also an important aspect i've learned from my visits from different countries. Like particularly, the buses around LA doesn't give out change. You gotta pay the exact amount. Before setting off, I asked my dad for loose quarters to make commuting easier.<br /><br />After getting my sim, I felt kinda ripped of having it cost around 65 bucks (2,900) pesos for unlimited text and unlimited data. The night before I had my eyes set on the prepaid with an unlimited data pass for a day which costs 1.50$ but the local T-Mob rep rebutted me that i'd be spending a lot on data if I go with the prepaid voice sim. Either that or I was just ripped off to take in a 65 bucks data plan for one month. Either way, I think those kind of things could be charged to experience. I wouldn't have loyalty to T-Mob forever, I linked my US number to my Google Voice number so that next year when I go back, I could grab another sim and register it to my GV number.<br /><br />After which, I headed to the nearby Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for my usual dose of chai tea latte. It was 4 bucks (~170 pesos) which is not bad. My regular chai tea latte in the Philippines costs 130. Then I realized one of the cardinal rules of traveling. Do not convert.<br /><br />Well, ripped off or not, sometimes you just gotta sit back and enjoy the view (despite being rainy and all)<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TQ3N0nhCA1I/AAAAAAAAC0A/TPGJsKE5AFk/s1600/34810_484523318900_584243900_5725090_5455745_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TQ3N0nhCA1I/AAAAAAAAC0A/TPGJsKE5AFk/s320/34810_484523318900_584243900_5725090_5455745_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-77561497253365833512010-11-19T19:40:00.000-08:002010-11-19T19:40:15.121-08:00Circles and Dunbar's NumberI honestly dont know how I reached 1000+ Facebook friends but if I would recount a previous conversation with a friend, I realized that I have been too involved with so much things in my life that eventually led me to have different circles of friends. The conversation was actually about how problematic a wedding would be if considering that one should invite different people from different circles.<br /><br />I came studied gradeschool in San Beda Alabang (formerly known as St. Benedict College which was formerly known as Benedictine Abbey School --Hopefully thats the last name change they'd do) and then moved to Don Bosco Technical Institute Makati. I headed to De La Salle University (then Manila) for college and continued for graduate studies. I've been involved with several groups of people, like our local country club swimming team which really felt like a close knit family and there's also FORMDEV from college and the Nettrekker people whom I met during the times I was running a private game server. Meeting people feels great, its like starting to read a new book and you discover something great. But not all people are like that, some people are hard deal with, some people are really annoying and more often than not, it take great effort not to be rude to them by shutting them off completely.<br /><br />In a discussion with Arun last night, he was saying that there was a study which said that a person cannot really have more than 150 real life friends (on an average) the type of friends who you feel comfortable with. He explained that those friends are the ones that you wouldn't be ashamed of talking to or catching up with, lets say, if you two meet in a foreign country. After Googling for several minutes and verifying sources, I came to know that it was called the Dunbar's Number. With my pending trip to LA this Christmas, my sister was really pushing me to go to San Francisco and just save the trip to the east coast next year. Mike was offering me to crash on their house in Tampa which I'm still considering though tickets from the west to the east is still a bit too steep for me. Dunbar's number came to mind. <br /><br />As I got an email from my sister today that she was really rooting for me to head to San Francisco (because its cheap and its near), she suggested that I contact two people, old friends of ours and ask if I could crash a day or two. Ive thought of what Arun said last night and maybe my hesitation was because, even though I've spent time with those two, I feel like the closeness was more of being an acquaintance rather than being a close friend. Ironically, considering that the two are old friends I had compared to Mike who I knew for like what, hmmm 3 or 4 years? If I only had the funds I wouldn't have hesitated flying in to Tampa to visit a good friend and his dog. Come to think of it, he owes me tickets to the screening of Tron Legacy.<br /><br />On a side note, I think it was my first experience to be unfriended by someone who I think is a really nice friend. You know, the type who you could have a nice conversation with and all. I actually don't know the reason why (though I think I might have an idea), I respect that persons decision even if it is unsaid. Sometimes we cant control people who walks into our lives and the ones that walks out. In the end, I think the most important thing to remember is the quality of the time spent with that person rather than the length of being friends.Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-67431909722232659182010-11-10T02:33:00.000-08:002010-11-10T02:33:24.615-08:00Web Service FoulTo those who have been my friends since time immemorial, you would have realized that I have been blog hopping since the time I started writing. From my self made blog page back in 2003, to my LiveJournal account, to my scattered secret blogs, of blogs composed of letters to someone and of blogs dumped in Friendster and then everything dumped back into my again self made repository of writing. Everything from 2003 to 2006 has been archived there. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TNpzobOCY2I/AAAAAAAACyw/iHDHS_kx114/s1600/Picture+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TNpzobOCY2I/AAAAAAAACyw/iHDHS_kx114/s320/Picture+3.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />After a while, I then settled down to the then famous Multiply site where I had a bunch of pictures shared to friends and mostly blog posts both private and public. September 9, 2006 was my first ever entry in my Multiply site which overlaps with the Friendster blog which is already at my archive site. The last post there was dated October 18, 2006. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TNpzmFKT8cI/AAAAAAAACys/mgZld7WK944/s1600/Picture+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TNpzmFKT8cI/AAAAAAAACys/mgZld7WK944/s320/Picture+2.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />Before Google's minimalistic approach to things came into light, most web applications or most of the websites have one gauge in measuring effectivity: site traffic. Websites back then such as Yahoo pegs its high traffic from users who gets stuck in its endless maze of information shunned in front of your face as if a helpless baby fed a large piece of steak. Come on, look at it.. They say that everything is in your fingertips, but then again, those information are most of the time irrelevant and is just one big clutter. <br /><br />These websites has this diabolical motto: keep the user in the website. Looking at it on a financial perspective, its a goldmine for advertisers. Helpless users stuck digging for useless search results, being fed with bits of teaser information, sports headlines which leads them to another site again, full of bits of information which leads you to things you never knew existed. This evil mantra of keeping users in the site led to more usability problems and more frustrated users. <br /><br />Before I get back to my point, I will present to you one perfect example. Yahoo! Mail. Since the beginning of my internet days, i've been using Yahoo! Mail for my personal communications. I could recall that my oldest mail was from around 2002. In essence, I was stuck for years with the service and even if I wanted to move I couldn't back up my mail. Yahoo! was cunning enough to prevent people from using mail clients such as Outlook (at that time was the famous client) to download my mail using POP. You would have to pay for that additional service to use other mail clients. I assume for the simple reason that if people dont use their webmail client, who will view their lousy ass, huge and annoying ads? Less ad views, less profit. Simple math. Again, keep the users from opting out. Damn evil. <br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TNp0Bhrc4tI/AAAAAAAACy0/ipsFqOrhWWU/s1600/Picture+4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TNp0Bhrc4tI/AAAAAAAACy0/ipsFqOrhWWU/s320/Picture+4.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />But then again, due to competition, Yahoo! was pressured to 'open up' a bit through the iPhone's add email functionality and now GMail allows importing mail from Yahoo! accounts. <br /><br />This type of mentality harms the users. Web services should give the users the option to migrate or opt out of their service and rightfully keep their data. Now, this is my biggest problem. Multiply uses the same diabolically evil techniques to keep their cashflow cart running. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TNpzlhLJ9GI/AAAAAAAACyo/NZXEp-D0nxc/s1600/Picture+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="32" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TNpzlhLJ9GI/AAAAAAAACyo/NZXEp-D0nxc/s320/Picture+1.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />As of this writing, I currently have 503 blog posts in my Multiply account. Multiply, being <sarcasm> really nice people </sarcasm> doesnt offer any exporting function to save your blog to either text or XML. Blogger has that feature, WordPress has that feature, LJ has it.. Why cant Multiply have that damn export feature? <br /><br />Their RSS feed is just a bunch of compilation of the first few statements of your post. None of it really wouldnt help that much. <br /><br />And after looking for ideas or plug-ins to manage that. Some idiot just doesnt understand the difference between cross posting and exporting. Seriously, you dont need to parade that you could cross post your new entries to another blog. Some people just dont read. <br /><br />So in essence. Thanks to Multiply and their foul play for its millions of users, you really cant leave. <br /><br />Maybe Hotel California is a fitting song to a <sarcasm> very nice </sarcasm> service from our friends from Multiply. <br /><br /><i>"You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave."</i><br /><br />Cheers to copying and pasting old blog entries. Heck, maybe I would just code a decent parser for this stupid service.Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-8945668795281429212010-11-08T18:54:00.000-08:002011-03-14T01:57:11.682-07:00Small ThingsI've been having a lot of inflow of ideas recently. I'd also be helping a friend develop his existing system into a web based one. I think this is a good time for me to get back to coding and learning about new things since most of the ideas would require Facebook integration and Google APIs in development. Perhaps I could shoot in a little overview on the projects and track them from time to time and see which ideas are progressing.<br /><br />Quotes - I have this thing for saving quotations and back then I had a local site which I store my favorite quotes but I think there's a better way of storing and sharing quotes. I've checked out some sites which does quote saving and sharing like <a href="http://quoteabl.es/">quoteabl.es</a> but it lacks a certain function I need like importing quotes from e-readers like the Kindle or the iBooks app. They say that they have a plug-in for highlighting quotes and saving it but on my previous examination of the service it still lacks a lot of features. One annoying thing though is its banning of curse words. I often put to quote barkada conversations which, really has a lot of swear words. It also lacks privacy settings and the whole site assumes that all of your quotes are public. Quote saving using quotabl.es asks a lot of inputs but basically just needs two. UI design of that does not say that there are only required fields and others are optional. Persons quoted also doesn't appear as you type the author, I think that is really helpful to omit redundancies in spelling of the name and further on improve search since entries like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and A. Saint-Exupéry and Saint-Exupéry existing on the database all at the same time. Sign up could also be more convenient by integrating to other SSO services like FB. Kickstarter.com has a nice site which, in just one click, could sign you up to their service. <br /><br />Gig Finder - Ever had that nights when you and some friends want to watch a gig of some band, lets say, Sugarfree and doesnt really know where they're playing? I had that problems. Ever asked yourself what local bars are in your area and want to check who's playing where? I had that problems. So, maybe this could at least help the local (and hopefully global) gig industry to provide a simple web (or mobile) application people could use to find gigs near their location or query the web on who's playing where. I think it would come in pretty handy for gig hoppers out there. <br /><br />Enrollment Scheduler - A friend of mine did a nice little Java application which lets you schedule the classes you will take and the breaks you have and could cycle different sections depending on the professor or the schedule you like. Its a very promising app though it would be better if it was a web app. Maybe after we've discussed what needs to be done to convert it into a web app, we could polish it with a more intuitive GUI and make it more easier to use. More info regarding this project could be found at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/DLSU-Manila-ENROLL-Scheduler/173041779374088">http://www.facebook.com/pages/DLSU-Manila-ENROLL-Scheduler/173041779374088</a> .. I really hope that this thing existed while I was in college. I kinda hated the thought of 3 or 4 hour breaks during my day.Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-8337532876259965562010-11-05T07:37:00.000-07:002010-11-05T07:37:12.608-07:00The Value of an IdeaSeveral months ago, me and some friends were talking about Chatroulette and how frustrating it is that, we never thought about doing something so damn simple. A friend ranted that it was just some dumb randomizing algorithm then outputs two different people with their webcams on. Around that time, the founder of Chatroulette was already headed for New York to meet with investors or with people interested in buying his company. <br /><br />Fast forward to several weeks back, I met with two other people who wanted to throw in some ideas at the table and start brainstorming and getting feedbacks from each other on how to proceed with the idea.. We all said our take regarding each others idea and decided on how we should proceed. Fast forward to today, I received an SMS from one of the two which reads that his idea was already launched by some local company. At first I shurgged the thought and told myself <i>"Hey, whats the worse that could happen? They probably built some sucky product that would probably just wither and die after a few weeks."</i> As I got to the office and checked my mail, I read something about that site and when I checked.. I clicked the link and at one glance.. My head was like.. <i>"Oh shit." </i><br /><br />Its not the first time these things happened to me, or my friends. We have these great ideas which eventually loses steam after encountering roadblocks or after consulting with other people who greatly discouraged our way of thinking about the project. Being in the field of I.T., these ideas, given the right people could be easily done by someone or a group with the right amount of motivation. At the end of the day, being at the losing end, I guess we could all say what my friend replied to my email awhile ago: <i>"I feel agitated and amused all at the same time." </i><br /><br />Perhaps, to those who have great ideas and wants to make it happen, I would like to share some thoughts which some might, or might not agree with. Having several of my ideas screwed over because I was too slow to act, maybe others would benefit from the things I'd share below. <br /><br /><b>Importance of your idea</b><br /><br />Most of good ideas come from either a need or a want. You know those times when you come across those minor annoyances and thought to yourself, <i>"Maybe theres a better way to do this"</i> or <i>"Probably if they changed that, they could get more people."</i> If your suggestion or idea could be implemented with the right people, then pursue it quickly. <br /><br />Gather up the people who you think could help you with your idea and once you get the thing running, even at the bare minimum, provide a disclosure with one of Google's favorite word: <i><b>"Beta"</b></i>. But remember to keep building until its like what you've initially imagined (but don't stop there --read on below). Its really important to have the right people with the right attitude to work with you, getting the wrong people who lacks the drive or motivation to finish what your group has started will just drag your little project a bit longer. Dragging it longer means a bigger window for your competition to either get wind of your idea and launch a quick release and in the end, you just wasted time developing your idea. <br /><br /><b>Know when to reinvent the wheel</b><br /><br />Competing with an existing product or service is not always a bad idea. When Google started, there was already Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, Alta Vista, and all those other search engines. When Facebook started, there was Friendster, MySpace, Multiply and other social networking sites. Being innovative doesnt necessarilly mean being the first. Sergey and Larry knew that the old wheel (other search engines) lacked accuracy, slow, very much cluttered, and most of the time returned irrelevant results. Zuck knew that the old wheel (other social networking sites) lacked the ability to let other people know what you're currently doing, or share a cool site you came across. Case in point, they reinvented the wheel because the old wheels suck. The old wheel sucked bigtime. <br /><br />Dont be afraid to take on existing products or services as long as you analyze who or what you're competing with. If you know that a certain product or service lacks the thing your product or service has, then its a good direction to take. <br /><br /><b>Know when NOT to reinvent the wheel </b><br /><br />You know you're taking the wrong path when you realize that your idea is just like the other 1,000,000 other product or service you have seen. Trust me, I already encountered people who like, want to create an instant messaging client because the existing instant messaging clients has an ugly name. And sometimes, their idea is suckier than whats already in the market. We all have bad ideas, sometimes, it just takes common sense to know that its really bad. <br /><br />Perhaps a good example on when NOT to reinvent the wheel is developing a blogsite. Back when I was in starting college, I wanted a blog site which I could fully customize. I know a bit of PHP and some HTML which I could use to create my own blogsite from scratch. Whats my premise in doing this? I was silly to think back then that (at that time the "in" thing was LiveJournal)&nbsp; LiveJournal would just suddenly declare bankruptcy and close down along with all my memories (blog entries) with it. I was so paranoid that LJ would just pop out of existence after a decade or so, that I did create a blogsite from scratch. I was also worried about the time when internet was not available, that if I keep my own blog locally, I could update anytime and just upload when I have a connection. Boy I was DAMN WRONG. Right now, that self made blog has entries from the year 2003 to 2006 and I would take time to move the entries bit by bit to a new home in Blogger. <br /><br />Another good example on how NOT to reinvent the wheel is with those quick and dirty website requirements which non-technical people could use. I've learned to appreciate those pre-packaged content management systems (CMS) available for download because of the work I've done years back. Back then, my boss would want a simple site which someone without programming background could update easily. I normally would say that I'd code a login page, an add news page, a page which displays the updates, setup a database, etc. and would take roughly two weeks addressing the need. I started to appreciate CMS when those 'microsite' requests got a bit more frequent, and when I mean frequent its in every month or so.<br /><br />I always hated the thought of reading other people's code, but learning the back end of Joomla, even if the requirements for microsites pile up, I could easily mass deploy Joomla sites and just customize to fit the needs of the people who would use it. Sometimes, even the features they need comes in installable modules. Now, using those CMS, it doesnt break my heart to know that apparently the site they wanted didnt get as much hype as they expected. Imagine working your ass off for 2 or so weeks just to know that the site you made was never used. Ouch. <br /><br /><b>A good idea never finishes</b><br /><br />Sometimes, being the cool one who gets your idea to the market and being used (or bought --for consumer goods) by lots of people doesnt mean you should sit idly with your laurels and all that. Always remember that a good idea never finishes, it grows. There is always room for improvement. Dont be afraid of competition, rather make it a drive to improve your idea. <br /><br />Maybe looking at the other side of the fence, like Yahoo and Friendster we could learn from their mistakes that even the smallest idea from an unlikely competitor could steal your current glory. In this example, Sergey and Larry are just two insane graduate students who want to improve the quality of search. Mark Zuckerberg was just a college student who started a university wide social network. If I were Yahoo or Friendster, at that time, I would either buy what their developing or improve on my services that would trample their puny existence into oblivion. Look at Google and Facebook now, continually improving on their core competencies. Though Google had a different thing in mind, before something explodes into something big, they assimilate that company along with its idea. <br /><br /><b>Be careful who you trust</b><br /><br />Having an idea in mind, one could get so excited that that person starts telling other people about his or her idea. Most of the times (my apologies for being so pessimistic), it does more harm than good. Its always good to have those people who could give you inputs about the ideas you have in mind, but you should keep in mind that these people could steal your ideas anytime. This is not uncommon in the tech industry. Remember when Steve Jobs was invited to Xerox PARC head quarters? He saw that the graphical user interface (GUI) was the next revolution in computing. Steve knew that the executive at Xerox PARC can't see the potential in the things being developed under their noses, so what did he do? He stole the idea and put it in his product. Bill Gates and his boys did not write DOS, they bought it from some poor dude for $50,000 in 1981 which was told that Bill and his boys would just <i>'play with it.' </i>Probably in a more recent example, most of you probably watched Social Network,&nbsp; and yes Zuck stole the idea. As Steve says: (as quoted from Picasso) <i>"Good artists copy great artists steal."</i><br /><br />Be careful kids, its a jungle out there.&nbsp;Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-32496217670880311562010-09-21T00:03:00.000-07:002010-09-21T00:03:22.793-07:00Jailbreak for 4.1 Finally Released<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TJhYfT7jpsI/AAAAAAAACv4/pwVe4JMeKoM/s1600/Picture+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TJhYfT7jpsI/AAAAAAAACv4/pwVe4JMeKoM/s320/Picture+1.png" /></a></div><br />Finally, after the long, agitated wait for the jailbreak.. Its now released folks!<br /><br />Important note though, there is no UNLOCK (Ultrasn0w) yet. Just wait for the new Pwnagetool so you could create IPSWs without the baseband updates.. Proceed with caution. <br /><br />This will just jailbreak your 4.1 (and possibly beta 4.2) device. Ola!<br /><br />From the Dev-Team blog: <a href="http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/1160213613/redsn0wier">Dev-Team Blog - redsn0wier</a>Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-657570182753218142010-09-19T05:41:00.000-07:002010-09-19T05:41:57.380-07:00One of the Oldest Phishing TricksI got surprised when I saw this email. I didn't know that these tricks were still being used. Its a dangerous world out there people, be careful!<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TJYDy9YAXvI/AAAAAAAACvw/LU-e8w0claY/s400/Picture+1.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="360" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the oldest phishing trick.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TJYDy9YAXvI/AAAAAAAACvw/LU-e8w0claY/s1600/Picture+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-72204829953583274422010-09-09T09:51:00.000-07:002010-09-09T09:51:34.852-07:00Credit Card Phone Policies, Social Engineering and You<div style="text-align: left;">I called my credit card company earlier this evening to either have my credit card discontinued or have my annual fee waived. Due to the problems I had with that company, it was not really my loss if they didn't waive my annual fee. Everything went smoothly and as the transaction completed, got home, started browsing, I came across <a href="http://lifehacker.com/5633751/microsoft-offers-free-cyber-security-book-for-teens-and-new-internet-users">this very nice article</a> about cyber security (ironically) courtesy of Microsoft and (more ironically) released for free. 12.3MB downloadable <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=87583728-ef14-4703-a649-0fd34bd19d13&amp;displayLang=en">here</a>. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TIkQhTxkCNI/AAAAAAAACvo/IAmieAAoE6Y/s1600/Own+Your+Space+Teen+Book+_All+Chapters.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TIkQhTxkCNI/AAAAAAAACvo/IAmieAAoE6Y/s320/Own+Your+Space+Teen+Book+_All+Chapters.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Then I thought, I think there's a bit of a security hole in those companies policies. I remember Kevin Mitnick and his book, The Art of Deception. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tDtESTnduTE?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tDtESTnduTE?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></div><br />You see, banks asks about details which identity thieves could easily obtain. Take for example, I was asked for my credit card number and my full name. Credit card numbers could be easily listed down by some employee of a merchant you bought some goods on, so is your full name (its on the card Sherlock). Even that 3 digit CVV2 code behind the card. So make sure that you keep an eye on the person whom you hand your credit card to. But sometimes this is hard, take restaurants for example. When you ask for your bill, you drop your card on that black sleeve and wait for it to come back. You don't normally follow the waiter around to the cashier just to make sure that they don't do something funky with your card details. <br /><br />Second, the card company normally asks for your mother's maiden name, your cellphone number and/or your home phone, and your birthday. Your phone number and birthday? Check your Facebook profile, you've might have given it away there. Home phone number? You might want to un-list yourself in next years Yellow Pages. Mother's maiden name? Someone pretending to be from a certain company calling your mothers secretary at her office could easily pry that information from that unsuspecting secretary. Heck, maybe even Google Search has those information about you.<br /><br />But if you're pretending to be somebody else, even with those information, they could still trace your number! Sherlock, there's a thing called a payphone.<br /><br />I don't know up to what extent one could exercise phone banking powers, in my phone conversation a while ago, just by saying yes to discontinue my credit card they would immediately process it. Now, use your imagination. What if someone who has a grudge on you, pretends to be you and calls your credit card company and right then and there terminated your card? Isn't that a pain in the ass?<br /><br />Or what if that person, asks the bank on what current promos or bundled insurances they have? Then you'd just be surprised when you find out that you're already being charged for insurance payments which you never actually approved. The possibilities are endless. <br /><br />I think banks and credit card companies should improve their identification or authentication techniques. If you watched the video with Leo Laporte and Kevin Mitnick, you'll be surprised on how easy it is for people to do those things.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TIkOzpLqLQI/AAAAAAAACvg/DEx2xXy3Qks/s1600/mitnick_book_f2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/TIkOzpLqLQI/AAAAAAAACvg/DEx2xXy3Qks/s320/mitnick_book_f2.jpg" /></a></div><br />The Art of Deception is available for purchase from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Art-Deception-Controlling-Element-Security/dp/0471237124">Amazon</a> or you could have it imported through your local book vendor.Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-31940787308082417002010-09-04T22:35:00.000-07:002010-09-04T22:35:35.304-07:00Duke Nukem Forever, Taking ForeverIf you've been into computer games for several years now, you've probably heard about the Duke Nukem franchise. I remember playing the 2d Duke Nukem side scroller on my old 386 box and heard about the new FPS Duke Nukems though popular PC magazines. So if it was a popular franchise comparable to Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy and other games in that era, what the heck happened to it?<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2010/09/duke-nukem-mock-kurt-miller.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="211" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2010/09/duke-nukem-mock-kurt-miller.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image courtesy of Joystiq</td></tr></tbody></table>&nbsp;Much like software development, it deteriorated because of ambition and the ever changing technologies involved in software development. The development suffered a fatal blow shifting from one game engine to another. Its a bit tempting to use modern technology halfway through the development given the mindset that <i>"hey the new engine would probably cut the development time into 1/4 so I don't mind sacrificing the time wasted developing with the old engine" </i>But then again, the implications of such would be having to learn the new engine probably leaving your developers flying in blind. Not to mention that the workforce was slashed during 2009. Ouch. <br /><br />Yes, a newer engine would probably yield better results, much like comparing the old Quake engine with the CS Source engine or what have you. The difference in the gaming experience would mean high sales or a flop. The problem with Duke Nukem was probably planning. If development were meticulously planned that despite improvements on gaming engines, despite delays in deliverables, that development using the previous engine would continue, then most probably even if its late.. They could have delivered.<br /><br />It was announced on PAX that Duke Nukem Forever will be coming to the PC, PS3, XBOX 360 this 2011 thanks to the efforts of Gearbox.<br /><br />Well, lets just wait and see.<br /><br />More reading about this topic:<br /><a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2010/09/03/duke-nukem-forever-being-completed-by-gearbox-expected-next-yea/">Joystiq - Duke Nukem Forever coming '2011' on XBOX 360, PS3 &amp; PC, courtesy of Gearbox</a><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Nukem_Forever">Wikipedia - Duke Nukem Forever</a><br /><a href="http://duke.a-13.net/">The Duke Nukem Forever List</a>Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-38556266084225064362010-09-02T02:15:00.000-07:002010-09-02T02:15:52.616-07:00YouTube MoviesI heard that Google is launching movies through YouTube but I didn't realize that it was already available.<br /><br />Head on to: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/movies">http://www.youtube.com/movies</a> for your fix on documentaries, bunch of horror flicks, cartoons, Bollywood, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies. <br /><br />Now, don't you think that those media boxes with YouTube support are now worth the investment?Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-43668068596091952062010-08-28T12:00:00.000-07:002010-08-28T12:00:42.195-07:00Vanity for PrivacyBefore the location services of Facebook was launched, there was a neat little option in your Facebook app that could lookup your Facebook account and download and set photos of your friends on your phone.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/THlZ8VHdpII/AAAAAAAACvE/ofuTqMWV3Hc/s1600/IMG_0468.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/THlZ8VHdpII/AAAAAAAACvE/ofuTqMWV3Hc/s320/IMG_0468.PNG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Before Facebook had location services, this is an outright privacy concern.</td></tr></tbody></table>At first I thought, "Hey, thats pretty neat!" then surprisingly as you switch on that Synching tab it will prompt another message regarding privacy concerns.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/THlZ37aV4lI/AAAAAAAACu8/rXbgV6EwBz4/s1600/IMG_0469.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/THlZ37aV4lI/AAAAAAAACu8/rXbgV6EwBz4/s320/IMG_0469.PNG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clicking I Agree would send your whole contact list to Facebook. Scary.</td></tr></tbody></table>This kinda creeped my out. All my contacts details are going to be sent to Facebook!? This is insane! All that information just to get my contacts corresponding Facebook picture? No thanks. I backed out when I saw this message but perhaps, people would just skip through this message and hit 'I Agree' immediately.<br /><br />Looking at another perspective, Facebook could have done it in a less privacy invasive way. Instead of sending out your contacts information to their servers, why not download your contacts to your phone temporarily and look up if the phone number is existing.<br /><br />For example, if John Doe is my friend, and he has a mobile number +63917 123 4567 stored on his Facebook profile the only thing I need to download is his current profile picture and the number associated with him. Or, a 2-tier query would be lighter instead of downloading all of your friends pictures and numbers. First step is to download all the numbers and compare it with the numbers stored on your phone, second step is to remove all numbers not present on your phone and send back the trimmed list to Facebook to retrieve the corresponding profile picture and store it on the phone.<br /><br />So why did Facebook opt to pull data from your phone rather than doing it the other way around? We cant say for sure, but given the track record of Facebook when it comes to privacy, they'd probably want to keep a whole lot of phone numbers through this approach.<br /><br />Despite my selection to disagree with Facebook's contact syncing, I really couldn't say if one of my friends already sent out his/her entire phonebook content to Facebook along with my number.<br /><br />Privacy as a trade off for vanity? No thank you.Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-66522381313995215122010-08-26T03:19:00.000-07:002010-08-26T06:39:06.911-07:00Google Voice in GmailAfter the acquisition of Gizmo5 by Google, everybody knew what was about to happen. Google will expand to the realms of VOIP which is currently dominated by Skype. Its not about a question of if, it was a question of when. Finally, after the long wait, Google launches Call from Gmail.<br /><br />From the comfort of your own Gmail account, you could call the US and Canada or free.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/THY8KsL5q7I/AAAAAAAACuA/1k3_T5_-W_Y/s1600/Picture+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/THY8KsL5q7I/AAAAAAAACuA/1k3_T5_-W_Y/s320/Picture+3.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hello there little Call Phone button!</td></tr></tbody></table>By default, if you're not a Google Voice subscriber, your number will display as a generic number. But Google will offer you to upgrade your account to a Google Voice account for free and you get to pick your own number. But theres a catch, you need to have a US number.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/THY8MwuBAvI/AAAAAAAACug/LB0-5GFCQ8s/s1600/Picture+7.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/THY8MwuBAvI/AAAAAAAACug/LB0-5GFCQ8s/s320/Picture+7.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I tried ringing my Google Voice number from my other account.</td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/THY8MWQNrOI/AAAAAAAACuY/_VNYiib4sWU/s1600/Picture+6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/THY8MWQNrOI/AAAAAAAACuY/_VNYiib4sWU/s320/Picture+6.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You will be offered a Google Voice number if you want to be reached easily.</td></tr></tbody></table>I circumvented this problem by using our Magic Jack number so I could reserve a number with POGZ in it. Also, there is that error that says Google Voice is not available in your country. I remember I activated my account when I was in America a year ago but you could always use those free US proxies just to enable your account and to call dibs on the number you want. <br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/THY8LOtINzI/AAAAAAAACuI/cDaoF-bxHcU/s1600/Picture+4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/THY8LOtINzI/AAAAAAAACuI/cDaoF-bxHcU/s320/Picture+4.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You could select the option Forward to Google chat all calls from your Google Voice number.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Now since Google Voice has been integrated to Gmail, your Gmail account will ring if someone tries to call your Google Voice number. Pretty neat huh? :) <br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/THY8L85udeI/AAAAAAAACuQ/Ahha3X34w4k/s1600/Picture+5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/THY8L85udeI/AAAAAAAACuQ/Ahha3X34w4k/s320/Picture+5.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is what it looks like when you're being called on your Gmail account.</td></tr></tbody></table>Feel free to try it out for yourself! Log in to your Gmail account and click on the Call Phone button on your Google Chat box. As per Engadget's review of the call quality, Calling FROM Gmail surpasses the quality held by Skype but apparently, as they reported, Google still has work to do in improving its noise cancellation technology. If you want to read more about Engadget's article, click <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/25/google-introduces-voice-in-gmail/">here</a>. <br /><br />The call rates for other areas of the world could be found here. And as Google said, its "Insanely Low" rates is in fact, really low compared to SIP services, Skype and Yahoo Messenger.<br /><br />Apparently, after that net neutrality ruckus with Verizon, I think they're still wearing the smug launching this service. It kinda feels like they kicked the teleco companies in the nuts.<br /><br />Good job Google! You've made the world a smaller place once more!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_-DzpAg0SdU?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_-DzpAg0SdU?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object></div><br />100826 9:38pm Edit:<br /><br />Apparently, Lifehacker has compiled a nice guide on how to maximize your new and shiny Gmail communication tool. Click here for details: <a href="http://lifehacker.com/5622470/eight-clever-ways-to-take-advantage-of-free-calling-in-gmail">http://lifehacker.com/5622470/eight-clever-ways-to-take-advantage-of-free-calling-in-gmail</a>Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-323392980466325421.post-69110858842424698662010-08-24T09:32:00.000-07:002010-08-24T09:41:33.100-07:00Looking at the Other Side of the CoinSeriously, people are looking at things at a single perspective. I really cant blame if thats their opinion on things but come on. Not just because you saw it on your friends Twitter page, your classmates Facebook status updates, your neighbors Tumblr account doesn't neccessarilly mean that it is the truth.<br /><br />I love the commercial of Inquirer and motivates people to keep 'inquiring' and not just settle with whats spoon fed in your mouth by some convenient source. It just irks me so much that everything is spreading like wildfire.<br /><br /><b>First point: Mendoza was the bad guy</b><br /><br />Oh come on, cut the guy some slack. If you scavenged the web for more readings and asked yourself, "What made him tick?" You could have gotten a better answer. Take for example <a href="http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100824-288459/From-decorated-police-officer-to-hostage-taker">this</a>&nbsp;article from Inquirer on how Mendoza was a good man, a decorated officer and probably just another policeman at the wrong place at the wrong time. Heck, he could even be someone who was 'crabbed' by other envious men in the force, you know how dirty things are.. When you're climbing up, people would pull you down.<br /><blockquote><i>“If he wanted to use his authority to earn easy money, he could have easily taken that money and leave the service for good. But he did not even think about it,” (in reference to the Marcos loot)</i></blockquote>I believe that man is inherently good. Its how the world treats us that twists us into something ugly. Its how we get pounded over and over again until we break.<br /><blockquote><i>“My brother felt he was a victim of injustice. He was not given a fair chance to defend himself.” (accounts of Mendoza's brother)</i></blockquote>Sadly, we'd have to deal with the ugly injustices we currently have. But that doesn't mean that we can't do anything about it. The movie <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX6kVRsdXW4">"Law Abiding Citizen"</a> kept swirling over my head. Good guy, pushed to his limits, crucified with the systems injustices, retaliates.. many people die.. You know, stuff like that. It happens, and as people would say: <i>"Wag mong sagarin ang kabaitan ng isang taong mabait, dahil pag yan sumabog.. Magsisisi ka."</i><br /><br />You cant blame the man for feeling agitated when he saw that his family is being mistreated by the people outside. If you were in his shoes and lets say, you're mother was being dragged around being shouted upon, what would you feel?<br /><br /><b>Second point: Irresponsible information&nbsp;dissemination</b><br /><br />I just find it annoying how people keeps reposting information that is not even verified. Perhaps this is somewhat reminiscent of the 'chismis' culture which is inherently inside every one of us. <i>"Uy, si ganito nag post ng ganito, na ganito daw.."</i> .. Remember how information gets changed, some info gets lost, or some blatantly adds to the information as it gets passed around? That is exactly whats happening to our circle of social networks.<br /><br />That letter, from the alleged survivor? Seriously, how hard is it for one to Google the name of the supposed writer, check the links, verify if it came from a credible such as foreign news websites or at the very least, local news websites. But then again, I come to my third point<br /><br /><b>Third point: Even the media makes mistakes</b><br /><br />For one, they shouldn't be covering the whole thing. Its like they're vultures swarming over a dead carcass waiting for it to flinch. Lo and behold, the hostage taker was watching everything on the on board TV. (I know that Steph would react to this).. We all know the media is just doing their job, but sometimes, we bring more harm than good specially in delicate situations.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/THPvxzLulVI/AAAAAAAACtw/o7JIHDOVOzc/s1600/whoops.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="58" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GrhY6iE8XH4/THPvxzLulVI/AAAAAAAACtw/o7JIHDOVOzc/s400/whoops.PNG" width="400" /></a></div><br />You wouldn't believe how many people retwitted this. Come to think of it, as the message got passed the speculation eventually borderlined truth. Or was everything just a misunderstanding?<br /><br /><b>Fourth point: Kulang sa training</b><br /><br />Again, cut the force some slack. I hope that people would understand that policemen doesn't get paid that much.. Perhaps it more like a noble profession much like being a teacher. Not to mention that our arsenal is not that hi-tech compared to other countries.<br /><br />Even the disputed Spratly Islands, the AFP admits, that <a href="http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/08/18/10/rp-lacks-arms-case-war-spratlys">we lack arms</a>. I cant help but quote: "Wala naman tayong ipuputok" .. Its funny, but its the truth.<br /><br /><b>Fifth point: Dapat kasi (insert comment here)</b><br /><br />Really? Throw flashbangs? Night vision goggles? Thermal goggles? Snipers? C4 explosives? Rappel down helicopters? Black ops mumbo jumbo?<br /><br />I really cant believe how many people kept suggesting things that the SWAT should have done. This is not Counter Strike, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Half Life or even Mario.. Why couldn't people just sit back, let the experts do the rescuing and just STFU.<br /><br />Quick reply: <i>"Oo na sige na, KAYO NA ANG EXPERT"</i><br /><br />--<br /><br />I just hope that people consider looking at the other side of the coin. All that bickering, all that finger pointing is getting really annoying.<br /><br />To those interested in further readings, check the links below:<br /><a href="http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100824-288459/From-decorated-police-officer-to-hostage-taker">From Decorated Police Officer to Hostage-Taker</a><br /><a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/08/23/hongkong.hostages.reaction/index.html">Hong Kong angry, sad at handling of Manila siege</a><br /><a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/08/24/philippines.bus.survivors/index.html">Survivors describe terrifying ordeal inside bus</a><br /><br />Enough bickering. Lets just learn from our mistakes.Pogz Ortilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07983584973408044784noreply@blogger.com0